#ff clive

Final Fantasy XVI ; Barnabas/Odin fight 2/3

WARNING: THIS IS A NEGATIVE REVIEW/RAMBLE. I DO NOT WANT TO MAKE YOU FEEL BAD IF YOU LOVED THIS GAME, I JUST NEED TO GET ALL OF THE BAD FEELINGS OFF MY CHEST!!

Personal Rating 2/10

how much of the gameplay (quests, upgrading weapons, pacing, structure, choices regarding 16s party system etc) did I enjoy?

I enjoyed it about 5% of the time. Harsh I know. Up grading weapons was cool. Party members being unplayable and not even being able to issue commands made me feel super detached from them. Especially since characters like Jill, who is often a party member, will go for literal hours on end without making a single quip during battle. Looking at you first 25 hours. Pacing? Yikes, this should have been a 20 hour main story line game, not 40. That, or they needed to flesh out all of their characters better and have a more coherent narrative to support the confusing plot.

How much of the combat system did I enjoy?

About 50%. Fun combat for a while, but with little to no variation in enemies, between eikon's power's, plus never needing to factor is the elements like you do in other ffs (fire enemy: use ice or large enemy find weak spot/take out its legs first idk) topped with the philosophy of the game being quantity of enemies over anything else left little to no strategy and a lot of R1 and □.

Visuals, animation, art direction, sound design, music?

WHY TF DOES THE FANFARE ALMOST NEVER PLAY. AT LEAST PUT SOME OTHER KIND OF MUSIC OR SOUND SO I DONT HAVE TO LISTEN TO SILENCE AS MY PRISE FOR BUTTON MASHING BRO?? also, "a return to ffs roots"? Yeah no. Character designs for the most part are,,, ok?? A bit "done before" ig? Sort of, stock-image historal Britain? Kinda LoTR but less fun??? (Also, I can't be the only one who saw Jill's hair and went: oh hey it's tifa/garnet hair) I just think it would have been great to get that Yoshitaka Amano's style- long funky colored hair, organic looking armor, everyone covered in makeup and jewelry.

Now. As someone who wants to go to uni for fashion and or character design on top of being a huge history buff and leftist: WHY IS IT SO WHITE? AND CIS MALE? AND HETERO? Absolute step back from previous games. All in the name of "accurate reflection of medieval europe"?? Don't bs me. If that was the truth, then whats with the mash-up of several hundred years of fashion? If that was the truth, then why is everyone white?

I love how casually gay Dion is. I'm queer myself. And, I know I skipped alot of cutscenes (I found the dialogue to be rambling, the shots to be uninteresting, and the facial animation lackluster) but why did Dion and Terence have to break up? And then Terence dies?? But Joshua and Dion don't get together even though they had chemistry? Why is Clive banging his STEP SISTER when he had amazing chemistry with Cid??? This leads me into story:

Plot and exicution. Etc. Story and characters- how do they measure up in comparison to other ff parties and protags you've played?

Yall... this ain't it either 😭 clive was SO much more interesting when he thought he'd killed Joshua. Jill had so much potential that ends up wasted. Dear God. In most side quests, she doesn't even have dialogue nor is in frame. Dion and Cid were easily the most immediately captivating from beginning to end. Same goes to Joshy boy. Also uh, why is Torgal magic in the last half of the game? I know he is supposed to be like a magic-shiva-ice dog, but why? It didn't make his attacks more powerful or do anything really....

Benedicta was such an interesting villan and then she was killed (i was hoping for 'villan is partially redeemed and joined the party to fight the real big bad of the game'),

Clive was SUPER compelling at the start with him not knowing he was the one who "killed" Joshua, (i actually cried at the end of the demo) and then he arcs out of it and, dont get me wrong, he still has drive, but him being the "next cid" and having a WAY more advanced hideout than og Cid did when og Cid had been doing this for way longer then Clive has... idk.... SPEAKING OF CID- I can't believe they killed off the one main character who had just as compelling a story as clive plus banter.

Lil reminder: JILL IS CLIVES STEP SISTER?? LIKE EW. The story would still work if it was about found family and friendship??????? the evil mom idea was so interesting and it just kinda... And then clive and josh not even being afraid of ultima? Bro i was just pissed off at those last three boss battles. Combat system + boss battles are repetitive once the novelty wears off. Other party members being unplayable makes me feel less attached to them, especially if they're not constantly bantering during battle like in 15 or 7r. This means that little to no info is discolsed through battles wgen you have control or running in the field. Exposition is only done in cutscenes and heavily relies on you using the active time lore. Im playing an action game. Why am i reading?

Overall, it kinda feels like 2 or 3 games smashed into one given all the time skips. Tbh I would have preferred two parts if it meant I got to become more attached to everyone/thing. Again, WHY TF IS IT SO WHITE? WHY IS IT SO MALE? I am SUPER happy we got queer representation, and I've got no issue with the m rating. But the whiteness? Plus the constant overshadowing of female characters? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE "NOT CLIVE" BITING "NOT BENEDIKTA" BUT THEYRE NAKED??Also, Jill and clives relationship was terribly unequal with all the postering of healthy communication- like the game was trying to convince me that this was fine, really.

I can not reiterate enough how much of a step back 16 feels in both the context of ff and the modern gaming landscape. I can't be the only one who finds a story about oppression to be spearheaded by a masculine, cishet, white man ( whos arc is terribly flat, ) off putting.

So:

Is it an ff game? Ehhhh uh ummm? Ff is always trying new shit- but I miss the feeling of "omg i love every character, this party is so fun/ makes me feel so many emotions" and I'm not getting that with 16. When 16's cast, game play, story concept, pacing, and execution is up against every other ff I've played thus far (ff7, ff7r, ff10, ff15, ff6, ff9, ff7cc), 16 isn't exactly ranking high. Hell- it isnt even ranking high against all the other non ff games I've played.

Tl;Dr-